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Friday, October 31, 2014

Happy Halloween everybody! And to celebrate, let's flashback to The Real Ghostbusters Halloween themed episode, "When Halloween Was Forever," featuring Samhain, the ghost of Halloween. He's a giant robed ghost with a pumpkin for a head, big gnarly teeth, and a questionable Irish accent. The episode originally aired on Nov 1, 1986, the 8th episode of the first season, and part of ABC's Saturday morning cartoon block.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

I gotta say the security at this week's Marvel event must have been pretty crappy because ANOTHER video leaked online. But of course when Hydra is your security company, you have to expect these things. Anyway, this clip shows a tense scene between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers which mirrors and amplifies the animosity the two had for each other in the first Avengers. Take a look.

In the oddest bit of marketing, an Assassin's Creed Unity gameplay trailer was released today showcasing the four-player co-op aspect of the game. The weird thing is it's being played by people doing celebrity impersonations of David Attenborough (narrator of a nature show on BBC), Alan Carr (an English comedian), Morgan Freeman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.The clip is from Assassin's Creed UK so I can understand the involvement of the English people, and Arnold impersonations always sound funny, but Morgan Freeman is the one I don't understand. He doesn't even really sound like him. But the clip is worth watching just to hear the Arnold voice spewing typical Arnold phrases but in 18th century France.

In case you're not completely burned out on all the Marvel news that's come out the past few days, the teaser for Avengers: Infinity War just leaked online. The majority of it is footage from previous Marvel movies showing the Tesseract, the Aether, Loki's Sceptre, and the Orb, with narration from Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Anthony Hopkins' Odin among others. The money shot is at the end when we see Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet. It's shaky cam footage so you hear every cheer in the audience. But the biggest cheer was for the fact the movie will be split into two parts. Can you get that excited about a movie that comes out in four years? Apparently you can... :P

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Katniss Everdeen tells off President Snow and everything kind of goes to hell in the final trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. There's definitely way more stuff shown in this trailer and I'm completely confused by it all since I haven't seen Catching Fire yet. Incidentally, it's finally on Netflix now so I should probably get to it soon. Anyway, here's the trailer!

With Halo: The Master Chief Collection coming out on November 11th, Microsoft has debuted a brand spanking new trailer showcasing the newly redone cutscenes in Halo 2. It was revolutionary 10 years ago with its online multiplayer and dual wielding weapons. And with this update, it looks absolutely beautiful.

Of course we've been spoiled by great graphics for a while so to get a good scope of what Blur Studios has done (the company that updated the cutscenes) here's a video compiled by Halo Canon, with a comparison of old vs. new graphics. Outstanding work Blur!

The Halo: Master Chief Collection will be available November 11th on Xbox One.

If yesterday's Marvel news wasn't enough for you, a new scene from the movie also debuted last night during Agents of SHIELD. The Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer was supposed to premiere during the episode but thanks to Hydra, it got leaked to the Internet a week early. In an act of goodwill, Marvel released the trailer themselves, and then last night included some new footage along with the trailer. The scene is an example of why I think the Marvel movies tend to be more fun than DC. It involves various members of the Avengers trying to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. They're all hanging out and joking around until Ultron crashes the party.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Today's Marvel media event essentially did a Chris Rock "drop the mic" and leave the room as it mapped out the next five years with nine movies to add to the two we already know about to give us ELEVEN movies. DC did the same thing a couple of weeks ago, but to be honest, I'm way more excited about this news. Anyway, here's the lineup.

Avengers: Age of Ultron, May 1, 2015. We obviously already knew about this and you can check out the trailer and my trailer breakdown here.

Ant-Man, July 17, 2015. The Paul Rudd led film has hit some obstacles with director Edgar Wright leaving the film, but it's important because it completes Marvel's Phase 2.

Captain America: Civil War, May 6, 2016. Cap 3 has been referred to as Avengers 2.5 and will feature the Civil War storyline which required superhumans to register themselves with the government, with Iron Man leading the pro-registration faction, and Captain America being against it.

The short is a little hard to explain so here's a synopsis from the site:

"The short film tells the story of one of the most important space exploration endeavours of this decade. Just as Gillen’s enigmatic Master encourages Franciosi’s Apprentice to seek out the key to life amidst a rugged alien landscape, ESA has been on a decade-long ambitious journey of its own, to unlock the mysteries of a comet and the origins of our Solar System with its Rosetta spacecraft, hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth."
It's a very interesting and beautiful looking short aimed to help support the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, deployed 10 years ago and is the first spacecraft to successfully orbit a comet. Very fascinating stuff if you're into space. Check it out!

In "Things You Can't Outrun," the villain of the week took a backseat to explore the backgrounds of the support team or "geek squad" if you will by showing a lot of flashbacks to the fateful night the particle accelerator exploded.

Here are four things to take away from Things You Can't Outrun.

The Mist

Kyle Nimbus, dubbed the Mist by Cisco can turn himself into poisonous gas because the night of the explosion, he was being executed via gas chamber. Not exactly the best development for the character in this episode, and he was actually dispatched very easily. The Flash kind of just tired him out. But he is the first super-villain to survive and be incarcerated at STAR Labs new makeshift prison. As more meta-human villains get locked up, it'll be more and more likely that they'll all get broken out at some point and it'll be utter chaos in Central City.

Confusing fact: Anthony Carrigan, the actor who portrays the Mist, will also be playing Victor Zsasz in upcoming episodes of Gotham.

Monday, October 27, 2014

According to deadline.com, negotiations have begun at Marvel for Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch to play Doctor Strange. After a deal with first choice Joaquin Phoenix fell through, Marvel went back to the drawing board to get the world's greatest detective into the role of the Sorcerer Supreme. What do you think? Cumberbatch certainly has the acting chops to pull off a role that requires a lot of magic and mysticism. He is the voice of Smaug after all. But I can't help thinking this would usurp a lot of his time, and deny me new episodes of Sherlock which I so desperately crave.

In related news, watch Cumberbatch do his Jar Jar impression, the voice of Smaug, and completely fail at pronouncing the word, "penguins."

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Halo: Nightfall is an upcoming five episode digital series produced by Ridley Scott. It's the second foray into live-action for the Halo series, the first being Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, which was only okay even with an appearance by the Master Chief. But this one is produced by Ridley Scott, so it's got to be good right?

Nightfall follows Agent Jameson Locke and his team as they investigate terrorist activity on the planet Sedra. The series takes place between Halo 4 and 5, and Agent Locke is set to play a major role in Halo 5. The trailer definitely looks pretty good and also features some Covenant enemies so I'm looking forward to that. But it always begs the question, can a Halo series survive without the Master Chief?

Look for Nightfall to premiere November 11th on the Halo Channel on Xbox. Here's the trailer!

Do you ever get the feeling New Zealand's economy is based totally on the Lord of the Rings movies and tourism? Well this airline safety video from Air New Zealand combines the two in a clever and kinda cheesy way. They even go so far as to say it's the "most epic safety video ever made." Considering it contains the likes of Elijah Wood & Sylvester McCoy, I'd say the bar has been risen! Though the bar was only really at hobbit height to begin with.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

It's been a pretty hectic night. There were screenshot leaks of The Age of Ultron trailer of Hulkbuster and Ultron which I posted here. Then the whole trailer leaked online before it was supposed to premiere next week. I was scrambling to get a trailer breakdown of the low res video up, and when I was this close to being ready, Marvel themselves stepped up and didn't demand any of the videos be taken down. They went and uploaded the trailer themselves in glorious high definition. They even proved they have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

So the trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron was supposed to debut during next week's episode of Agents of SHIELD. So of course it's been leaked online and here it is, so watch it before it gets taken down!

UPDATE: Marvel has noticed the leaked trailer and decided to upload an HD version themselves. Good on ya Marvel!

When the title of your episode is "Viper," you can make certain assumptions. Viper implies snakes. Snakes have venom. And venom is the drug that makes Bane super strong.

Left to Right: Dark Knight Rises Bane, Comics Bane, Arkham City Bane

But let's slow down for a moment. We didn't see Bane in this episode. And just because viper was revealed to be an earlier version of venom, it doesn't mean we will see any iteration of him as we know him. Anything we see will be an origin story, and if we're lucky, it'll be as good as how the Penguin's story has been so far. And if we're not lucky, he'll end up sounding like the Count from Sesame Street again.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

It's a short trailer, but there's brand new footage of Katniss, a beat up Peeta, and everyone else in a new trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, which is ironically brought to you by Doritos of all sponsors. Check it out below!

While visiting Chew Valley School in Somerset, UK, Sir Ian McKellen gave the kids some advice on preparing for their examinations.

In case you're wondering, McKellen was there to talk about bullying and homophobia in schools. He has dedicated much of his time to promoting equal rights and if this doesn't make you a bigger fan of him, I don't know what will.

At Chew Valley School to talk to staff and students about gay issues. I learned about exceptional work they have done to eradicate bullying.
— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) October 19, 2014

Thursday, October 16, 2014

First off, I've never read a single Flash comic book. Super-speed just doesn't look quite the same in the pages of a comic as it does on TV. My knowledge of the Flash comes from the 1990 TV series and mainly from the Justice League animated series, where he was used primarily as comic relief. Fast-forward to today.

Last week's pilot of The Flash was everything I wanted it to be. It had action, some comedy, pretty good special effects, and most importantly, it left me wanting more. It did everything an origin story should, and it sped to Barry Allen becoming the Flash in just under an hour. The episode reminded me of the first Spider-Man movie, and that's a good thing. From the titular superhero getting abs from the incident, to the subsequent sequences of having fun with their new powers, and even down to the slow-mo effect of Flash's speed force and Spidey's spider-sense, it was like watching Spider-Man all over again in a new and fun way. It was a refreshing and light-hearted take on a superhero that DC hasn't been doing in any of its properties. I enjoyed the pilot a lot, and it has zoomed past Gotham as my number one new TV show to watch.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Last week's episode of Gotham was a bit of a letdown featuring a villain of the week who paled in comparison to the quirky duo of Lily Taylor and Frank Whaley the week before. But "The Balloonman" did offer me something I didn't see coming. It made the Bruce Wayne storyline more interesting. With the Balloonman carrying out his form of vigilante justice, killing corrupt Gothamites by way of weather balloon, it showed that the city really needed someone like that. Someone to stand up against the evil in the city. And Bruce Wayne's recognition of that and the fact that despite the Balloonman's good intentions, he was still a criminal, quickly developed Wayne's "no killing" rule, which is one of Batman's key morals. Of course, we're never going to see the young Wayne become Batman, but it's nice to see the character finally grow up a little instead of remaining the whiny little kid he's been so far.

Mob Wars

With Arkham up for grabs for land development between rival crime families the Falcones and the Maronis, Gotham delivered a great episode Monday night. The villain of the week this time, who I literally shouted out, "Hey! It's Dubaku from 24!" was an assassin who used a device with a telescoping spike to kill his victims. He spiked one victim in the eye. Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to put something to your eye a stranger gives you? And he burned another to death which made me wonder how they can show this stuff on an 8PM show?!? The baddie was ultimately dispatched by Gordon and Bullock when he tried to kill the mayor. In turn, the mayor allowed both crime families to have a piece of Arkham, weakening Falcone and strengthening Maroni. There's definitely a mob war coming.

First off, I've never actually cared one way or another whether a Ghostbusters 3 film ever came out. More of something isn't necessarily a good thing, and the Star Wars Prequels and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are proof of that. With Harold Ramis passing away earlier this year, and Bill Murray's questionable involvement, GB3 seemed more and more unnecessary. And to me, the Ghostbusters Video Game that was released back in 2009 is the best representation of a sequel featuring the original cast.

Enter Paul Feig and his female driven comedies. Bridesmaids was hilarious. The Heat was not. So his track record is hit or miss. I have no problem with an all female cast of Ghostbusters. I would totally watch that just based on the Ghostbusters association. What I ultimately have a problem with is the fact that the movie will be a REBOOT. You have two films and even a video game's worth of history, and you're just going to ignore all of that? When has a reboot that has ignored the original source material ever succeeded? This year alone has seen RoboCop rebooted with middling success, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rebooted to box office success despite scathing reviews. But Ghostbusters isn't even getting this kind of treatment. It's getting brand new characters and a new direction. Reading comments about this on the Internet, you'd think the world was headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Yup, the Internet has lost their collective mind about this. And for a moment, I did too. But a reboot isn't going to sully the original films. Sony and Feig have every right to try and make money, and I have every right to not spend my money on it, or even give it a second thought. But who knows. Maybe it will surprise me.

So I'm willing to give Paul Feig a chance. Maybe he'll actually make a good and funny Ghostbusters movie. Or maybe it will just be a two-hour poop joke. Only time will tell.

Here's a brief roundup of the new television shows I've been watching, and whether or not you should be watching too.

Gotham

Check out my posts on the first and second episodes. This is a must watch show for me now.

Scorpion

I talked about the first episode of Scorpion being "not bad" here. The second episode did a very CBS thing and went straight for your heart detailing the various faults in the team members. And all this was triggered by a number of children who were infected by genetically engineered viruses.

The show is sometimes smart, definitely cliched, and follows a pattern that most CBS shows employ. And thinking back, I give a lot of CBS shows a shot. All the CSI's, The Mentalist, Numb3rs, Person of Interest, and Elementary were all shows I followed at one point, and then just lost interest. I can't explain it, but I suspect Scorpion is probably on the same road for me. The question is am I getting off on an early exit or not?

But one of the big head-scratchers in this episode was when they could only send a germophobe into a bio-hazardous facility to retrieve some sensitive information because he was the only one with a photographic memory. It's like these geniuses have never heard of a camera. If eye-rolling drama continues to be manufactured like this, I'm probably switching back to Monday Night Football.

For most of my favorite TV shows, I can tell you the episode that got me hooked. For Sherlock and LOST it was their very first episodes. For Game of Thrones, it was episode 4 where Tyrion gets arrested by Cat Stark. And I didn't get addicted to Doctor Who until the second season of the relaunch's The Girl in the Fireplace. If Gotham ends up going anywhere, "Selina Kyle" may be the episode that makes it a must watch for me.

Selina Kyle

You know it's a weird thing when the character in your episode title doesn't even utter her first words until about 40 minutes in. When Selina, or Cat as she prefers to be called finally speaks, she's blunt and to the point. She doesn't whine, unlike another prepubescent character on the show. Her character already comes off as an adult having been hardened by the streets of Gotham. And by the end of the episode, she's completely won me over.